Analog-era minds have a hard time processing a key product of the digital era: the staggering amount of information being created, collected and correlated. What's called "big data" already identifies flu outbreaks and treatments for premature babies, and it predicts apartment overcrowding and airline delays.

Explaining this is the focus of a new book, "Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think," written by Oxford scholar Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier, data editor...